Welcome to the Office for Research & Discovery

Our office supports world-class research and discovery by University faculty, staff, and students, who are asking bigger questions and generating better answers every day. As Arizona’s premier research university, the University is ranked among the top 20 of public research universities nationwide and is a member of the prestigious Association for American Universities (AAU). While such rankings are important marker of our success, it is the impact of our research that matters most. Our research is creating the next generation of knowledge – and is translated and applied to society’s grand challenges – to enhance economic development and promote a rich quality of life. Through research experiences in and out of the classroom with our award-winning faculty, students have unparalleled opportunities to discover, learn, and to be prepared for the competitive global economy.

The University’s strategic plan, Never Settle, completed in 2013, highlights broad themes that capture our cross-cutting research strengths across multiple fields of expertise and that have opportunities for continued sponsored funding growth, inventions, and economic development. These areas including:

Water and the Arid Environment, with a focus on science and policy for clean and abundant water, use of renewable energy sources, and careful stewardship of our unique desert environment.

Space Systems, exploration both through land-based telescopes and through missions to Mars and beyond.

Defense & Security, materials science, threat detection.

Translational Medicine, including neuroscience and aging, precision health, health disparities in our indigenous peoples of the Southwest, and population health outcomes.

Informatics & Imaging that builds on expertise in analyzing, mining and visualizing ‘big data’ to yield useful knowledge, and the application of optics to reveal the fundamentals of life, the basis of disease, and the nature of our physical worlds.

Fundamentally, the Office for Research & Discovery is responsible for advancing transformative excellence in research across campus, with particular attention to our land-grant mission of service to the State of Arizona. We do so by enabling the research success of our faculty through supporting university research centers, institutes, museums and core facilities; providing research development, compliance and safety services; and securing strategic external partnerships.

I encourage you to explore our website to learn more – and please check out our new Gateway to Research Services to see the assistance available to our community.